Another First
May 12th, 2008 by John Setzler
I don’t often find myself in firsts situations, but when I do, I try to make a special note of it. Tonight, I found myself at the Catawba County Sports Hall of Fame Banquet for the local newspaper. My first in this case was a set of photos of Jennifer Howard Wolgemuth. Jennifer is the first female to be inducted into the Catawba County Sports Hall of Fame. I’m fairly confident that she’s also the youngest person to be inducted as well. Here’s the biography that was printed in the program:
Jennifer Howard Wolgemuth
Jennifer Howard Wolgemuth won two national Elks Club foul-shooting contests while in grade school and went on to score 2,054 points during her career at Fred T. Foard High School. Those achievements helped to earn her recognition as a Kodak All-American and a six-time AAU All-American. During her junior year, she helped lead Foard to a 29-1 season and the 3A state basketball championship.
In addition, she was all-conference for four years in tennis and also ran track. As an outstanding student athlete at N.C. State, she was named second team All-ACC team twice and set a conference record for career foul shots and her three point average of 44 percent remains a conference record.
In 1997, she was awarded the Frances Naismith Award for a player 5′6″ or smaller and is enshrined into the National Basketball Hall of Fame as a recipient of this honor. In addition, her basketball jersey was retired and displayed in the gym at Fred T. Foard High School.
An Academic All-American with a 4.0 grade point average both in high school and college, Jennifer played one year of pro basketball with the Cleveland Rockers.
A resident of the Vale community, she and her husband, Wade, have two children.